A New Account of Sept. 11 Loss, With 40 Fewer Souls to Mourn
Until now, the number of dead was 2,792. That number, 2,792, had stood firm for more than a year. It was the number recorded in almanacs and history books. It was the number of the names of trade center victims that children uttered at the second-anniversary ceremony, there on the lip of ground zero.

Now strike that number from your mind. Replace it with 2,752.

After what officials call an exhaustive investigation that spanned the world, the city has removed more names from the official tally. The reasons are the same as in the past: finding people once thought dead; duplication; insufficient data; fraud. In many cases, investigators could not prove a supposed victim had ever existed — a jarring concept, given that some names are embedded in the collective memory.

Remember Paul Vanvelzer and his two sons, Barrett, 4, and Edward, an infant who was once thought to be the disaster's youngest victim? It seems now that the Vanvelzers, reported missing by a California woman claiming to be a relative, may have died without ever having lived.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/nyregion/29ABOU.html